Leverage Scarcity to Sell More Products

I was looking through an old copy of the magazine ‘Wildlife Art’ when I saw an ad for limited edition prints for a particular artist.

At the top of the ad were thumbnails of 5 of his previous works, and each one had the words, “GONE” in red ‘stamped’ on top of them.

The headline read, “Joe Smith’s limited edition prints are the most endangered species.”

Next was a big image of the print they’re currently selling, and underneath that was the sub-headline, “Better get this one before it’s gone.”

Of course, this got me thinking how this same technique might be used in IM. What if we showed images of our last 5 programs (assuming they are no longer available) and then used similar wording to indicate that time was short and customers better act fast?

It’s definitely something to test – and I think it could be quite effective.

It could be done with affiliate products as well, if you show the product creators previous offerings that are no longer available.

In another copy of Wildlife Art, I found this headline: “Only .000042% of the world’s population has the chance to own this.”

Showing prominently is a picture of the planet to bring home the point that so few people will get to own one of these limited-edition prints.

If you are selling a product with a finite number of copies available, this could be extremely effective wording.